Week 26, Day 2

Week 26, Day 2:

Week 26, Day 2

Week 26, Day 2

Doesn’t look any different but there’s now concrete on the floor.

Concrete truck and pump

Concrete mixer truck and small concrete pump

There’s a dye added to the concrete (the Pewter colour from Hatcrete) – it went into the concrete mixer truck once that arrived on-site so the installation team could control the colour mix.

Concrete pump delivery pipe

Concrete pump delivery pipe

Almost finished - a third concrete delivery required to finish off

Almost finished – a third concrete delivery required to fill the last section

While the concrete was laid by mid-morning, the team spent the rest of the day (and most of the evening) power-float finishing the surface as it started to cure. Expansion joints get cut tomorrow then the diamond polishing will get done in a few weeks, once it has hardened.

Concrete gives off heat as it cures and by the end of the day the house was really very warm, despite having large openings on the second floor and no cavity wall insulation yet. That’s what you get with 250mm of floor insulation and triple-glazed windows, I guess.

Week 26, Day 1

Week 26, Day 1:

  • Final preparations for the concrete slab on the ground floor, mostly consisting of finishing up the insulation and damp proof membrane and laying the steel reinforcement
  • Some minor progress with the zinc roof, pending agreement of the exact specification of underlay to be used between the OSB of the Structural Insulated Panels and the zinc covering
Week 26, Day 1

Week 26, Day 1

Steel reinforcement in Living Room

Steel reinforcement in Living Room

The reinforcement mesh is raised up so it’s roughly in the middle of the 150mm-thick concrete slab. The Living Room has the complexity of the electrical floor boxes which have extra reinforcement around them.

Threshold where a change in levels is required

Threshold where a change in levels is required

Some areas are being finished as polished concrete (where the under-floor heating is, e.g. on the left of this photo) and other areas are having wood flooring or tiles. The finished levels need to match but where it’s necessary to allow for the thickness of the wood / tiles, the concrete needs to be finished to slightly different levels in different rooms. These steel threshold plates mark the changes in level.

Insulation in area that will become the wet room shower tray

Insulation in area that will become the wet room shower tray

In the ground floor shower room there will be a “wet room” shower tray built into the floor slab. This requires that the concrete floor slab stops short of that area and this pad of insulation acts as temporary shuttering – and a handy place to park the power-float.

Zinc on underside of roof edge

Zinc on underside of roof edge